Combat operations in the urban area are not new to warfare. The United States' military conducted large-scale urban operations in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. During the last sixty years, the United States' Army approached the urban area by rubbling or isolating the city. The combination of the increasing potential for urban operations and political restraints on friendly and non-combatant casualties reduces the usefulness of these historical approaches. Joint forces need a new urban operational concept that achieves strategic aims without rubbling the city or causing politically unacceptable levels of non-combatant and friendly casualties. Current joint operational concepts such as Joint Vision 2020 do not provide a view of future warfare. Emerging operational concepts such as Rapid Decisive Operations depend on long-range surveillance and engagement of enemy forces to reduce the requirement of close combat. The search for a joint urban operational concept is analogous to the Russian search for a new method of warfare during the inter-war period of the World Wars. Russian theorists realized the difficulty of destroying an enemy system with an attrition-linear attack. Operational Shock approached the enemy as a system and attacked its hierarchic nature attempting to create operational disunity. A survey of operational shock and systems theory revealed five critical aspects to creating this systemic effect. These aspects, attacking control, maneuver, simultaneity, depth, and achieving cognitive effects, were contrasted with the unique nature of the urban area.

ADA415872 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)